Then the door shut, and the room was silent.
CHAPTER II
SCOTT IS LONELY
Bravery Reginald Scott, of Merton, was one of Gobion's chief admirers. He thought that no one was so clever or so good, and felt sure that his friend's traducers – and they were many – had never really got down below the crust of cynicism and surface immorality of mind as he had done. He certainly knew that Gobion occasionally drank more than was good for him, but he put it down to misadventure more than taste.
He was a good young man, rather commonplace in intellect, but of a blameless life and an unsuspicious, happy temperament.
A man who had always been on the best of terms with an adoring family and a wealthy father, he ambled easily through life, enjoying everything, and being especially happy when he was worked up into an emotion by a poem or sunset.
Generally tethered in the shallows of everyday circumstances, his mind experienced undimmed delight in acute sensation.
He had one great motif running like a silver thread through his consciousness – his love for Gobion; and every night he humbly and earnestly prayed for him, kneeling at a little prie-Dieu painted green.
To him there had been something very sacred in his relations with this man. One night Gobion had stayed behind after a wine party, and had sat late, staring into the fire and talking simply and hopefully about the trials and temptations of a young man's life. Very frankly he had talked with a nobleness of ideal and breadth of thought that fascinated Scott and made him feel drawn close to this strange handsome boy who was so assured and so hopeful.
After that first night there had been others when they sat alone, and Gobion talked airily with a fantastic wealth of fancy and sweetness of expression.
Scott thought he could see in all this man's conversation a high purpose and a stainless purity, made the more obvious by attempts at concealment.
Then again, Gobion gave him the impression of being delightfully unworldly, with no idea of the value of money, for he would come to him unconcernedly and borrow ten pounds to get out of some scrape, with a careless freedom that seemed to point to an absolute childishness in money matters.
Scott always lent it, and gloried in the feeling that he was helping the friend of his soul, albeit that Gobion had had most of his available cash, and he knew his affairs were getting something precarious.
On the morning of the Wadham debate he lay in bed half dozing, with a pleasing sense of anticipation.
Gobion was coming to a tête-á-tête breakfast, and he wondered what he would talk about, whether he would wear what he called his "explicit" tie or that green suit which became him so well.
Not far away in Exeter, the object of his thoughts was getting up and carefully dressing. He was thinking over the part he would have to play at breakfast, and devising some way of breaking the news of his approaching flight, and thinking out a plan for getting as much money as he could to take him up to town.
He had finished his toilette, and was passing out of his bedroom when he noticed that he looked in capital health, and not at all anxious or unhappy enough for a ruined man.
Scott would doubtless never have noticed, but Gobion was nothing if not an artist, and had a hatred of incompleteness.
Accordingly, he pulled a box of water-colour paints out of a drawer in his writing table, and carefully pencilled two dark sepia lines under his eyes, several times sponging them off till he had got what he considered a proper effect.
About a quarter after nine Scott's bedroom door opened unceremoniously, and Gobion came in.
Scott jumped up.
"I'm beastly sorry, old man, to be so slack. I'll be up in a minute. Is brekker in?"
"Never mind, old man; I'll go back into the next room and wait."
When breakfast was brought they sat for a time in silence. Then Gobion spoke.
"Old man, the game's up."
"What!"
"I'm done – utterly."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you know how unlucky I have been in exams, and what a small allowance I have always had?"
"Yes."
"Well, the guvnor has written saying that I am idle and hopeless, and has taken my name off the books and refused to have anything more to do with me."
Scott gasped. "Oh, Lord, I am so sorry – dear old man – never mind, remember we promised to stick to each other. Now let's talk it over. What do you propose to do?"
"I shall go up to town this afternoon if I can get some money. I have had some work offered me on The Pilgrim, and I am sure to get along somehow."
"Of course you will, old man, you always succeed – look here, have you got any 'oof?"
"Not a penny."
"Well, I've got about twenty pounds I don't want. You had better take them."
"Thanks awfully, old chap, but I don't think I will, I owe you too much as it is. I don't know when I shall be able to repay you."
"Oh, but do, old man, you must have some cash."
"Well, if – "
"Ah, I knew you wouldn't mind; let me write you a cheque, you can cash it at the Old Bank this morning."
And he got out his cheque-book and wrote it. Gobion took it without saying anything, but he stretched out his hand and looked him in the face. With wonderful intuition he knew exactly what the other expected, and Scott felt repaid by his warm grasp and silence, which, as Gobion expected, he mistook for emotion.
After a melancholy cigarette Gobion got up and said, "You'll come and see me off, of course? I've got a lot to do, but I will have tea here at four and you can come to the station after. My train leaves at 5.30. Do you mind telling Robertson and Fleming, and anyone else you come across, and getting them to come too?"
The sun was shining when Gobion got out, and he thought that his first success was a good omen for the future. He strolled up to the bank feeling well fed and happy, and the strangeness of his position induced a pleasing sense of excitement and anticipation. He liked to think that he would be in the Strand that same evening.
When he had got his money he went to Condamine's rooms in Grove Street, where, as he expected, he found Sturtevant. He wore the yellow silk tie this morning.
They were having breakfast, and Condamine, unwashed and unshaven, dressed in pyjamas, with his feet thrust into a venerable pair of dancing pumps with the bows gone, was indignantly holding forth on the unapproachable manner of some barmaid or other whom he had discovered.
Gobion took the proffered drink. "First this mornin'," he said, and then, "I'm going down to-day."
"Game up?" said Sturtevant. These men were never excited.
"Exactly. When shall you be up?"
"I shall be in my chambers, 6, Middle Temple Lane, in three weeks' time, ready for a campaign in Fleet Street; we'll work together."
"Right you are; but aren't you afraid of my queering your pitch?"
"I'll take the risk of that. When do you go?"
"Five-thirty train."
"Shall we come to the station?" said Condamine.
"No, don't, the 'good' set will be there, and as I hope to carry off most of their spare cash, I think it would be wiser to depart in the odour of sanctity, and you'd rather spoil it."
"Right oh!" said the president, using one of his favourite phrases, and then raising his glass to his lips, "The old toast?"
"The